How do we Gain Users?

Publish your Side Project

Listed below are some great communities for sharing your latest works!

Communities using English:

  • HN - Messages should start with Show HN:, for doing so makes it easier for your project to be listed on the front page devoted to displaying creations which boasts hugh numbers of views.
  • ProductHunt - Don't forget to improve the icon and the screenshots.
  • Reddit - relevant subreddit's for almost all types of projects are ready for you to post about your project!
  • Indiehackers - There are a lot of independent developers out there, so it's a good place to receive advice from peers.
  • Twitter - If your project proves really useful, it's possible for it to go viral and the number of views that brings about literally exceeds imagination. For instance, Mr Nobody as I am on Twitter, it's unexpected that the Guide gets thousands of views and clicks merely hours after being posted.

Communities using Chinese:

  • V2EX - where many developers and designers exchange ideas
  • RuanYF's Weekly - you can try to contribute articles to the Weekly, and if it's included, hundreds of users willing to try is estimated to be brought
  • ruby-china - a well-known forum for programmers
  • cnodejs - related to Node.js
  • AppInn - a well-known site for software reviews
  • w2solo - which aims to be the Chinese community for independent developers
  • Hello github - which includes Open Source projects and its author has got a WeChat Official Account with considerable views
  • Chinese Independent Developer - which includes works by independent developers
  • Communities with which I am not so familiar: sspai, learnku

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Publishing and sharing your product is the way you find your users, but searching is the way users locate you. Although the short-term effects don't come so instantly as sharing it yourself, on account of the Long Tail, provided the SEO to be done has been well done, the users coming from Search Engines will outnumber those you obtain by sharing. Moreover, they need your product more.

SEO has at one time been an advanced task, for many tricks have been invented to deceive the Search Engine so as to help the website to rank higher. However, the value of a Search Engine lies in its aid to users when it comes to finding what they want. The game between search engines and SEO adopters has lasted for so many years, during which time countless tricks have failed and such abilities of search engines have been greatly improved.

For you yourself, the most important is to accurately write the introduction to your product and leave everything else to Google. It might not be a worthwhile investment toight a battle of wits and courage

  • Have your link shown on more high-quality websites
  • Help the search engine better locate your content and properly show it to users.
    • the title tag(<title/>)：tells users and the search engine what the website is about
    • the description tag(<meta name="description"/>): search engines may use this as the abstract of your website
  • Using brief but descriptive words as the link text (the visible part of the link). Such texts tell users and the search engine information on the website that is linked to.
  • Use filenames and alternative texts (the alt attribute of the image tag) that make sense for images: this enables the search engines for images (e.g. Google Images) to better make sense of your images and can be another source of views.
  • Build websites suitable for mobile devices, for many searches are made on mobiles. Google has started its attempt to implement mobile-first indexing, namely using the contents of mobile websites as a priority for ranking and parsing. If the mobile website lacks satisfying searching experiences, the rank of it will be lowered. And here's a tool made by Google for you to check whether your website is mobile-friendly

The Self-Growth Property

The best self-growth property of the product itself helps users, and all the other tricks are just icing on the cake.

Here're some tricks:

  • Rewards for invitation: which promotes sharing
  • Hunger Marketing: Adopting the invitation code mechanism
  • Increase user stickiness: establish a chat group
  • Building user confidence: long-term updates

The Importance of Continuous Improvement

Few products are made to look their best. Continuous improvement has two benefits:

  • Look for the product market fit: very few products have been made to meet the needs of many people
  • Continuous improvement gives users confidence

References and Recommended Tools

This page is translated by @aeilot.